When I was immersed in the Foundation Program at Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute School of Art in Utica, NY during the mid 70's there was a nice collection of Burchfields in the connecting M-W-P Museums. We, as students, were given access at times to "the vaults' where we could study many painters up close. M-W-P Museum of Art has a surprisingly large collection. The Foundation Program, lasted for a few years, was based on the combined curriculae of the mid 30's - 40's art schools Black Mountain School in Black Mt., NC and the Chicago Bauhaus. There was some Art Students League tossed in there too. Each day of a 5 day week we had 3 hrs of class in the morning and 3 hrs in the afternoon. We were expected to do @3hrs of individual study for each in the evening. I've always considered that experience the best art education I received. One day would be 2d design, then a second would be 3d design, another figure studies, etc. Field trips to the New York State Art Conservatory near Ithaca, at that time, , where we lectured by a very German conservator, Caroline Kecht sp?, on the Pollack's lack of craftsmenship because he used house paint that was beyond their technical expertise as conservators at that time. Oh my. We went to Buffalo, NY to the Albright-Knox. Was a/mazed by a room where the interior walls were mirrors with a mirror table in the middle. Totally disorienting after a few minutes! Was also fortunate to be granted an apprenticeship by my MWP sculptor instructor John Von Bergan with/to Steel Sculptor Williard Boepple. Boepple was David Smith's apprentice at the time of Smith's tragic death. Smith was decapitated by his load of corten steel when it slid forward when he went off the road returning to his studio in Upstate NY. At the Utica Boatworks, still in operation, Boepple visited often with Clement Greenberg, the NY Times critic who advanced the careers of nearly all the NY Abstract Expressionists. It was Greenberg and Boepple who decided after Smith's death to fulfill Smith's unstarted idea to paint his sculptures. They got a lot of flack from the art world for it. I was fortunate to be working with Williard one afternoon when Greenberg appeared. Greenberg was a short, kind of plump little Jewish man with glasses at the time. Greenberg had moved to the nearby Syracuse, NY area, his childhood home, after being "replaced" at the Times by Hilton Kramer. There is no education like the experiential!
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